Some Kind of Wonderful (Puffin Island 2)

He turned his head briefly and there was a sardonic gleam in his eyes.

She knew his mind wasn’t on his housebreaking skills and neither was hers.

Sweltering under the heat of her own thoughts, she licked at her melting ice cream. “And for the record, you never bought me dinner, Flynn.” She moved farther away from the line that was now trailing out the door and down the street. “And, let’s be honest, we didn’t date. We hung out and had lots of sex.”

“And then got married.”

She kept her voice light. “Put like that it’s hard to see how it went so wrong.”

“Are you saying I owe you dinner, Dr. Forrest?” He spoke slowly, in that rough masculine voice that had always made her nerve endings tingle.

“You don’t owe me anything. But I now owe you a Salted Caramel Crunch ice cream. I don’t want to be in debt, not even for carbs and sugar.”

He smiled at her.

Her heart thudded and she felt a rush of excitement and awareness that only ever happened when she was with him.

His smile turned speculative and his gaze dropped slowly to her mouth. Neither of them spoke, but they didn’t need to. She knew, she just knew, that they were thinking the same thing.

And those thoughts had nothing to do with Salted Caramel Crunch ice cream.

As a teenager she’d spent far too much time staring at his mouth and when she wasn’t staring at it, she’d been kissing it. If ever a man’s mouth had been designed for that task, it was Zach’s, and if anything, his knowledge of what to do with that mouth had increased.

The struggle not to touch him was killing her and she suspected it was killing him, too.

She wanted to rest her mouth against him and breathe him in. She wanted to strip him naked and explore every inch of his body, discover the changes in him. Not a quick slaking of mutual lust like that time in her hallway, but a long, slow, intimate discovery.

“Zach—”

“No.” His voice was thickened, and he dragged his gaze from her mouth with visible reluctance. “No.”

“But—”

“We’re not doing that again. I won’t hurt you again.”

Emotion hit her like a rogue wave, burying her in memories. It was all there, the excitement, the hope and the bitter misery.

The two of them stood alone, an island in a sea of tourists.

People flowed past them, laughing and chatting as they strolled along Main Street, dipping in and out of Surf and Swim, and enjoying the quaint charm of the village.

Zach lifted his hand and gently removed a blob of ice cream from the corner of her mouth. “It’s the right decision. You know that.”

She didn’t know that.

All she knew was that she was burning up inside.

To try to break the atmosphere of intimacy, she breathed deeply and looked towards the harbor where the Captain Hook was docking. “I bought provisions for Starlight Adventure. Managed to get in and out of Harbor Stores without an interrogation from Mel.”

There was a tense silence. “You’re going on that trip?” There was no missing the lack of enthusiasm in his voice.

“I know I’m not exactly an extra pair of hands, but I tell great campfire stories and I can help if any of the kids are scared in the forest at night. But I’ll be delegating spider-removal duty to someone else.”

“I’ll be available for spider duty.”

Awareness shivered across her skin and seeped deep into her soul. He was badass, a little dangerous and insanely hot. Looking at him made her dizzy, as if she’d smacked her head on a hard object. Her brain, which had served her perfectly well for most of her life except the parts when she’d been with him, stalled. For a few seconds the only words she heard were I’m available, and then the implications of his words sank in. “You’re going on the Starlight Adventure?”

Now she understood why he’d greeted the news that she was going with so little enthusiasm.